A.I. Gigapixel – An Inside Story

A.I. Gigapixel – An Inside Story

I still vividly remember the day I was blown away when I discovered an enlarged photo similar to the one above. I was reading a paper about deep-learning based super-resolution. In the paper, 400% enlarged photos had crisp edges, few artifacts, and — never seen before — rich detail!

As the first company to use super-resolution technology in commercial products, we keep track of all major research in this area. Theoretically, there is no way to perfectly recreate a high-resolution image from only a low-resolution image. The amazing breakthrough of this particular paper is that it uses artificial intelligence (A.I.) to fill in those missing pieces that cannot be directly computed. A neural network is exposed to a large number of high-resolution and low-resolution image pairs. This network gradually learns to synthesize plausible detail in the enlarged image based what it has seen.

Everybody was excited. We wanted to let our users enjoy this revolutionary development. But wait, in this age of good digital cameras, does anyone even need more pixels? It turns out many people do. People that develop large prints want more DPI. Photos from drones or phone cameras can be improved.

We immediately put a team together and planned to develop a product quickly. Within weeks, Chris, our youngest developer, had an app prototype and Dr. Acharjee developed the initial neural network. However, things started to go off-track. Weeks turned into months. We had a great challenge on our hands.

First, the published method was great for small, high-quality test images, but failed on real camera photos. We had to develop a method robust enough for real digital camera raw/jpeg images.

Then there is the issue of speed — or rather, the lack of it. It took many hours to enlarge just one raw image since over 4 million calculations were needed to enlarge just one pixel. We had to find a new neural network architecture that not only produced the high-quality result but required much less computation.

Even so, a regular PC would still take a few hours to enlarge a large image. Dr. Acharjee had to develop a customized GPU neural network engine to take advantage of the computational power of your graphics card. Now it takes a laptop (with integrated graphics) 20 minutes, or high-end desktop GPU a few minutes per image. We started to see the possibilities unravel before our eyes.

In the end, Chris made it into an image batch processor so that it could run in the background. Since there is no need for parameter tuning, batch processing is actually a better workflow for image enlargement.

Over a year after that day, with countless hours of frustration and joy, we present A.I. Gigapixel.It is still very slow on most laptops, but we are making it available so that you can enjoy the latest A.I. technology without delay. We are still tweaking and training new variations of our neural networks as I am writing this (it takes at least a week for us to know if the tweak is better or worse), and we will continue to release updates whenever better results are achieved. (Edit 10/04/2018 – We has since released A.I. Gigapixel V2 which had increased processing speed 3 to 5 time!)

I hope you find A.I. Gigapixel useful. There is so much hype nowadays about A.I., but Topaz Labs is the only company that has actually delivered A.I. based desktop photo processing application(*). We’ve already released A.I. Remix to change photos into paintings, A.I. Clear to remove photo noise, and now we hope A.I. Gigapixel can help you a little more in your pursuit of artistry.

(*) there are other deep-learning based photo processing products, all of them run on cloud servers instead of on laptop/desktop computers.

About the Author

About Albert Yang

Albert Yang founded Topaz Labs over 10 years ago, to form a company that adopts and implements the latest technology to introduce cutting-edge tools to the Photo market. With over 30 years of programming experience, he’s proud to offer his technical expertise to our users as the primary developer of our latest tools.

dp-3947

August 16, 2018

It runs great on my 2009 CPU with an Nvidia GTX970 (that came out several years ago). My camera is only 16 MPix and I will use this to make better detailed 20 x 30 prints. So please don’t assume this has little use for everyone else, just because you can’t use it/don’t need it.

Feng

Feng

August 18, 2018

Thanks for the comment. If you have a lot of large images, you definitely should use a “Gaming/Multimedia” computer. For now I hope it still can save the day if someone really need to enlarge a few images…

Again, we are hell-bent to make it faster and better. Please stay tuned for the coming update.

hurwood2002

August 31, 2018

It runs (slowly) on my Z600 workstation with 48GB RAM and a 1GB card (Nvidia GeForce GT 710) and managed to create a 256MP file from one of my 1Ds MkII images – took about 45 mins but still impressive.
I have now replaced this with a 2GB card bought on Ebay (£15.00 delivered) – which is faster but oddly crashes at anything over 200% upscaling – which the 1G card didn’t do.
but I’m quite happy with that – I can now upscale 50-60 images overnight after cropping them to the required dimensions.
So this is a product I will certainly be using a lot – why pay over £2000 for a new camera with a 30MP count when I can now get the same results with my old Canon 350D?
Or Canon 40D, 1D2N or 1dMk3?
So very well done Topaz!

Feng

August 18, 2018

Sorry for the confusion. We will update the requirement article. In fact the list is conservitive. The program should run on most computer if your images are not very large. if you can give it try and see if it works, that will be great.

Feng

August 18, 2018

Thanks for letting us know. Does it not run even on a small image or cannot run at all. I would really appreciate it you submit a support ticket at https://help.topazlabs.com and help us figure out the problem.

Feng

Lyn Taryn

August 16, 2018

I have tried this on a few images so far and the result is impressive. Gets rid of the old pixelation. It was very fast on my PC running an updated graphics card, even at 600% (less than a minute)
I have all the Studio Adjustments and a few plugins, and was looking forward to this one when it was mentioned in the webinar this week. I would get the use out of it, and use Topaz everyday.
However it is just too expensive – and yes I know it took a team and development time, which need recouping. One of the great things about Topaz is its components are relatively inexpensive and can be collected over time. As a retired digital art hobbyist, this one is a step too far for just a component to add. With the horrendous Aussie exchange rate currently, the USD$99.99 purchase price translates to almost $138 here. Even with the webinar reduction it is still AUD$110. I may consider that for a complete art package but for something that only does one thing, its too big a reach.
Pity as I have the other AI components and am loving this direction.

Feng

August 18, 2018

Thanks for your comment, Lyn. I am glad you like the result. I have forwarded your comment to marketing on pricing issue.

I also share your post with the team. In a sense, most people in the company considers ourselve as some sort of aspiring artists (not in fine art, but product development artists if there are such thing :-). We know the saying of “audience of one”. Thanks for letting us know that you like it.

MikeD65

August 16, 2018

I bought it, and tried to resize an image, I first tried it at 600%, could not locate the finished file. Then tried 200%, again, could not find the finished file, although, it was much quicker at 200. Not sure this is going to do much for me. I wish I could get a program like the old Genuine Fractals, that had a user friendly UI, and it worked. i have every Topaz filter, and have never been disappointed, so I skipped the trial run. Bad move?

Feng

August 18, 2018

Hi Mike, the finished files are in the folder specified at the bottom session of the right pannel. If you still cannot find them, please contact our support at: https://help.topazlabs.com . They will definitely help you figure things out.

I have just done a few quick trials upscaling photos (of some textile art – which with all the fibres and threads is a complex image) taken with a full frame SLR so 4016×6016 up to 16064×24064 and compared this with the same upscale in a good graphics package to same size. Immediate impressions are that the Topaz upscale is much clearer and more defined by a huge margin. The upscale from the graphics package is a bit soft and muddy in comparison (but no too shabby either and not the weird paint-stroke effect I’ve seen with other algorithms). So hands down – out of the box, without applying any more definition tweaks (eg local clarity) the Topaz wins hands down.
The processing sure takes a while (I have at least the recommended system) but then I’m only going to produce such a big work as part of a long process so would wait. it is surely no more of a wait than rendering a short movie.

Feng

August 18, 2018

Trevor, thanks for sharing your experience with us. A.I. gigapixel tends to shine on highly textured images such as your case or landscape. If your image is clean, uncheck the “Enhance Image” if you have not done so.

TonyMortlock

August 17, 2018

I wanted it to reduce pixilation of my archive of photos I took on my digital cameras many years ago, when resolutions were low.
So far, I am pleased with the results I have seen. I recently trialled another product that made similar claims, but the results here are far superior.
At the current price I think it is a bit expensive for what I need it for, but would be willing to pay it, if I have some assurance that upgrades will be significantly cheaper than the original purchase price, or that the original purchase price includes upgrades for a certain period of time.

Feng

TonyMortlock

August 21, 2018

Thanks Feng.
I think you have a great bit of software, but for me it is a bit expensive, since my use would be purely non professional.
So a point and a suggestion:-
1. Point – What does life-time upgrade mean? My life time? Lifetime of this version of the product? life time of the product until it is renamed or discontinued? Life time of the existence of your company?
I am sorry if that sounds negative, but I have a lot of CD media which had a guarantee for a life-time which have failed, even though I am still alive and the original providers of the guarantee are nowhere to be found.
2. Suggestion – As mentioned my interest is to enhance digital photos taken with old low resolution digital cameras. My photos are all .jpg, .png, bmp. gif, so I have none of the performance issues that the professional using RAW and other professional formats have experienced. How about creating a lower priced home use version, which is limited to saving the formats I have mentioned? If someone wants to save to other formats you could offer the option to pay for an upgrade.
Thanks
Tony

Feng

Nefj-721011

August 17, 2018

When I dragged and dropped an image in to AI-giga, the image did not open…the only information in the image area was a rectangle containing a listing of the image type (RAW) and pixel size along with date metadata. I clicked on a few locations on the interface, and never saw anything other than the description. The options to up-size were available and functional, but the image never appeared in AI-giga. Is this the way the interface is supposed to work?

Also, the recommendation is to apply AI-giga as the last step in post processing, after Photoshop or similar. I use Lightroom, which as far as I can tell required that the photo be exported from LR to some other location from which it can be dragged into AI-giga. I would appreciate any pointers on how to move RAW files that have been processed into AI-giga for final up-sizing.

Feng

August 18, 2018

Yes. The program is for batch process images. So it only show the list of images. If you double click on image name in the list, a preview will pop up. We got a few request on directly has a small preview windows included in the program. We already start working on it for the next update.

The program can process most raw file directly. Make sure to use 16-bit ProPhoto RGB tif as output to maintain image quality. The output image may be a little dark and washed out, so you need to use LR/Photoshop/Topaz Studio or any other editor to tune it.

Alternatively you can use LR to develop it first. Turn off the LR noise reduction since A.I. gigapixel usually do much better jobs.

Feng

Albert Hurwood

August 29, 2018

I have input a 256MP image to Easy HDR 3 and it accepted it them without crashing.
Bit it’s the first time I have seen all 12 cores of my Z600 workstation at 100% !
And it’s a good job I was running a small program (core-temp) set to cut off at 75C.
On the second try I turned the fans up to 50% and was able to complete the image and save it.
A totally AWESOME product !
Congratulations !

Feng

I downloaded a trial version of AI-giga and it worked on my desktop MAC using 10.12.6
I tried 3 different .RAF files (14 year old files made with my first digital camera – the Fuji S2Pro – a 12MP camera – really it gave a 6 MP file and interpolated inside the camera to 12 MP (14×9″ photo). It shows some improvement over the upsized file (to 18×12″) using PS CC 2018 but it took a solid 10 minutes to produce the output! The background was a little smoother with AI-giga compared to PS. I was hoping to use this software on a regular basis but it would just take too long!

Feng

Alan C Cameron

August 17, 2018

I was impressed by the prospect and dove straight into my 30 day trial….Wow ! What a winner !!!
Took a tough original image with lots of detail, tried out the 200 % enlargement and sent it to
Costco online, and 1 hour later, picked up the results. Just AWESOME !
My 2015 MacBook Pro with no extra bells and whistles had no difficulties making the 200% enlargement in
about 60 seconds. And you guys are working to make it better and faster …?
I love it !!!! This is my 10th Topaz product, and I’m a happy camper.

TonyMortlock

Joseph Bejm

August 18, 2018

I triad this program and is good but like skin it makes very smooth. So some stuff they were removed from skin. I also compare to Alien Skin Blowup 3 and I like the blowup 3 because the skin and other things are left just like on original.
This one does not have any settings just percentage. And the program doing everything else….
So Blowup 3 takes the place….

Feng

Joseph Bejm

August 19, 2018

I will try. The other problem that I see is that when you load picture you don’t display size and output size after you press start.
Second problem is that I had selected 400% press star then I cancel and I change to 200% and press start but program still ran at 400%. So there is a bug.
I don’t see any place to add pictures To Comments on this page.

Kahn5353

August 19, 2018

It is interesting that the opening Tutorial recommends running AiGigapixel as the last processing step. I take many ir images in a converted Canon camera and the images are quite noisy ‘out of the camera’ and putting images processed to .jpg through AiGigapixel really seemed to emphasise that noise. When I ran the Raw version through the grain-like noise was much reduced, but colour banding noise was evident. At this stage I am thinking that I will start processing with upscaled images and finish with DeNoise or AiClear. However I am still playing with this new toy. I like having new toys … thanks … Chris Rourke

Feng

Robert Persons

August 20, 2018

It is pretty impressive! The only two issues which would make it work better are:
1) How it handles text. If there is text in the original which is not somewhat clear to start with, it tends to warp and curve the text.
2) It has a tendency to smooth out some parts of a scene a bit much for my taste. Some kind of control to bring back some of the subtle textures would make the result look more realistic.
But overall it’s an amazing leap forward! It’s refreshing to see a truly new approach taken to the problem of doing sharp upscaling!

Feng

August 21, 2018

Hi Robert, Thanks for the feedback. Text will take longer to fix, but we are working on the smooth problem. Currently we provide 2 models with small and medium noise suppression. But they can also remove texture in some cases. We will add a “No noise reduction” model for very high quality input images.

Jeannie Girard

August 20, 2018

I downloaded the free trial and tried it on a few images that I had cropped. The first time I used 2 images, and the second time, only one. I have a Mac Pro that is a pretty fast machine, but oh boy was this ever slow!. I timed it. If I ran it with all boxes checked it took over 5 minutes. It was really fast if I didn’t check the exif data box, and did an 8X10, rather than doing a 400% or 600%.To Me unchecking the enhance Button is not a viable choice.

I uninstalled it from my machine. It took a while for me to get another app to work, after AI Gigapixel was uninstalled , but finally things were ok.

I feel that there are 2 issues for me,The main one is the fact it runs so slowly. I wonder if I could still even work on other apps while it runs in the background. The other is the high price. I have just about everything you have ever created. I love AI clear, and I also have AI Remix, which I do not use as often as AI Clear.

I will try it again when you have speeded up the app,Until then I will continue to use perfect resize, which is the current name for Genuine Fractals.

Feng

GerardVeerling

August 21, 2018

I tried Gigapixel, starting with an 17Mb Image, which we use to blow up to several meters. I set voor testing enlargement to 150% and image quality to maximum, but gigapixel is downsizing my image (!) from 17 Mb to 1600 Kb and 72 Dpi low resolution. When I set Size 550 cm and 90DPI Gigapixel shuts down without any warning. You released it too soon?

Feng

Mike Davis

August 21, 2018

I just downloaded the A.I. Gigapixel demo. It runs great on a Mid 2010 Mac Pro Sierra 10.12.6 with AMD Radeon HD 7950 3072MB card. Results are very impressive. (I have used most the major competitor software.)

Testing a few images, two minor issues arose:

1) Selected “Match Input” profile* but came out assigned “sRGB IEC60966-2-1 black scaled” (easily corrected by re-assigning its correct profile). *My working RGB profile (“Chrome Space 100”) is not one of the standard ones, however.

2) Image resolution always changed from 350ppi to 75ppi. Not sure why. (Pixel size was correct.) It was set to scales 400% & 600%

I do this type of work full-time and would be very pleased to help with any testing, recommendations or information, etc. Thank you for your efforts on this great new product.

Joseph Bejm

Randyroller

August 21, 2018

I find A.I. Gigapixel an amazing stand alone app. My question is does the Artificial Intelligence of A.I. Gigapixel, still operate when in use by myself or anyone else that’s using it. In other words does it only contain the A.I. it was given at Topaz before release, or does it continually add new understandings and insights? I hope that the latter is the case, otherwise, it’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, stops at the Topaz Labs door, when issued, which would mean, that it’s only A.I. intelligent as far as Topaz Labs makes it. So it’s not Artificially Intelligent at all. Which is it? I want to know. Hopefully, it’s constantly learning when in use, so you tell us which is the case.

Feng

August 22, 2018

Great question. Currently, it does not learn on your computer. We have to continue to deliver updates for the improvement. It will be great if we can figure out how to let it learn on the fly later on.

Thomas

August 22, 2018

I have downloaded the trial version of AI GigaPixel, and sure enough, it will not work on my computer. I have determined that I definitely will have to upgrade my graphics card, but I think otherwise that my computer is up to the task. The only question I have is how can I determine if my computer will support OpenGL 3.3?

Feng

Robert Sturm

August 23, 2018

I have several TOPAZ products and was looking forward to this one. My background is over 50 years in computer software. I have a custom built PC for graphics computing. The NVIDIA card is a NVIDIA Quadro K1200. it’s VRAM is 4 gig, Total memory is 20 gig and Shared memory is 16 gig. I have been bench marking the gigaplex software with the following results.
File size Change size Time to convert Result
24.1 mb 200% 14 minutes OK Sony raw ARW input file
11.3 mb 200% 13 min OK, jpeg input file
1.01 MB 200% 1 min OK, jpeg input file
11.3 mb 400% TDR failure NVIDIA Open GL Driver TDR Error code 7
385 KB 400% TDR failure NVIDIA Open GL Driver TDR Error code 7
NOTE: Any change size above 210% had the above TDR failure.
I would like to get the gigaplex software but not being able to increase my file size above 210% is a problem. If you give me an email address, I can send you screen shots of my gigaplex input screen. perhaps this can help fix the product.
Thanks in advance,
Bob

Feng

hurwood2002

September 1, 2018

I have the same problem with a 2GB card bought cheaply – a Gigabyte GF GT 610.
It processes at 200% no trouble even when batch processing 50+ files but anything above that it crashes.
But another card – a 1GB card Geforce GT710 worked perfectly at 400% and enabled me to create a 256MP file from my Canon 1Ds MkII.
In my case I simply crop the images first then batch them all at 200% which gives me the results I want but of course this may not be a solution for everyone.

photogeek03-1477

August 24, 2018

I downloaded the free trial prior to purchasing and I am having a big problem. Whether I use a RAW Image or a JPG image, the output is large, but the contrast and color saturation is drastically reduced. I must be doing something wrong since my results are completely unsatisfactory.

I was unable to watch your Webinar earlier this week due to privous commitments. Will it be available on You-Tube?

Before I decide not to purchase this product, I want to give it a chance. Right now, A.I. Gigapixel is not worth the money, in fact it is not worth 1/100 of the cost. I am veery disappointed.

jstech

Feng

Joseph Bejm

August 25, 2018

I have this Problem. Keeps running for a day or so and then I’m getting this massage.
“A.I. Gigapixel”
“The program detected an attempt to attach a debugger to the program, program will exit.”
I keep uninstalling and then installing again. Works for a day and then this massage appear. This happen after driver update.

Feng

Robert Sturm

August 26, 2018

I have a custom built graphics personal computer running Windows 10. It has a NVIDIA Quadro K1200 graphics card with 4 gig of VRAM. The computer has 20 gig of memory.
The Gigaplex software works at 200% although it is slow (13 minutes) for files above 11 megabytes. Above 210% it fails for enlarging all file sizes. I get the following NVIDIA error message: “NVIDIA Open GL drive TDR error code 7”. Is there anything I can do to get this software to work because it has potential? If you send me an email address I can send you screen shots of my Gigaplex entry screen.
Thanks in advance,
Bob Sturm

Feng

Albert Hurwood

August 28, 2018

An absolutely INCREDIBLE program!
I have tried other resizers and have not been really impressed – until I tried your program!
I am using it on a Z600 workstation with 48GB RAM and a 1GB card – yes 1GB – and it works – slowly but it does work.
In fact it works so well I have shelved my desire for a Canon 5D MkIV since my old 350D can now produce images of about the same size (about 30MP!) and with extraordinary clarity – clarity I could not get before.
Have also managed to produce a 350MP image from my 1DS Mk2 – took about 45 mins but still did it and from a 1GB card – the Nvidia GeForce GT 710!
Because of this I have altered the workflow I normally use and now crop the images to isolate exactly what I want firstly and then put them through AI Gigapixel.
This vastly reduces the time taken and when finshed I can then PP it to get the final result.
I have a larger card on order whch should reduce the time even more but with batch processing I can simply leave the program running – even overnight – perfect!
I will be putting some images on Flickr and will provide a link when done.
So once again congratulations on a really amazing program!

Feng

themessl

August 29, 2018

Hello,
I have been looking for a good magnification software for many years and so I say, after three applications later, thank you very much. Gigapixel is the winner. Finally, my family can watch the pictures from our first digital camera on an HD TV. In a very good quality. In the coming days the pictures of our mobiles will be in the gigapixel pot ;-).
Best regards Christian

hurwood2002

lynnv

August 31, 2018

The program does not work on my laptop. I am thinking of buying a new computer, but really don’t want a desktop. You give specifications where the software does not work. How about telling us what to buy in a laptop so we can run the program.

Feng

August 31, 2018

Thanks for your interest in the SW. For a new computer, buy a so-called “Gaming” or “VR-read” computer. More specifically, any desktop with a graphics card which has >=4GB video RAM will be good for you. You will find other photo software works better too.

Feng

Joseph Bejm

September 10, 2018

Mr. Feng, How I can get Install file it self. The web installer just hangs on my computer. I did not had that problem before 1.1 but now I can’t install any more.
Topaz Studio Web installer works OK but not this one.

Feng

Alonso Leyton

September 16, 2018

I downloaded the software, and I was able to enlarged three or four files, then the application refuses to work anymore.I had an old graphics card on my computer since I do not play games on it. Everything else is relatively new: An Asus Z170 De Lux, an i7 processor running at 4G, and 32G of memory. Since I really want to use this software, I bought and install the Nvidia GForce GTX 1070 with 8GB GDR 5, and still does not work. Is there a limit to the number of pictures you can enlarge with the trial software? I have reinstalled the app two times already, and nothing works

Robert K Persons

September 29, 2018

It would be very helpful if the custom file suffix could be persistent from session to session. As it is now, it is always “_output” which I never use. So every time I open AIG I have to change it to my regular suffix. I would like to be able to set the suffix I usually work with, and have that be persistent, so that the next time I open AIG it would retain what I had changed it to.

Albert

John Hollenberg

October 2, 2018

Just tested version 2.0, results are excellent. See my comments and a sample file with comparison to photoshop enlargement on Luminous Landscape:https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=126920.2
PS I would like to see a “Mild” option for blur/noised reduction that is half way between None and Moderate.

Albert

Akron

October 3, 2018

The trial version keeps crashing (I mean it crashes the entire computer) when I try to batch process over 100 files by 400%. Up until the point it crashes, it works really well with my GTX1080TI, takes only a few seconds for each image.

Albert

Gary Loader

October 12, 2018

AI Gigapixel was brilliant both in version 1 and 1.1 although a little slow. However when it changed to v2 although faster all the images I enlarged had horrible banding on the image. Tech support on the issue was very poor and were not able to find a solution. They would not even roll me back to v1.1. Very poor indeed. I’ve purchased quite a few of Alien Skin programmes over the years and have been very pleased with them. This issue though has left a bitter taste and I doubt I will ever trust them with my time and money again.